


The Smallest Goals

by solrosan



Series: Eating us Alive [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hand Massage, M/M, Massage, Sherlock Holmes Has an Eating Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26476477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan
Summary: They struggle. John has read about a way to bridge the growing divide between them and he's willing to try just about anything. Luckily, so is Sherlock.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Eating us Alive [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/16835
Comments: 21
Kudos: 45





	The Smallest Goals

**Author's Note:**

> Sigh. 2020. I really didn't think I would come back to this series.
> 
> This probably takes place during [Eating us alive, again...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/367266/chapters/597001) and if you want to follow John's blog posts in the epilogue, probably sometime during June/July.
> 
> It can also take place during the lock downs this year. 
> 
> Please take care of yourself and each other.
> 
> * * *

Sherlock sat on the sofa, his back against the armrest, his knees pulled up, and the latest number of _BMJ_ resting against his thighs. The red dressing gown hung off one of his shoulders, but he didn’t seem to mind. He had a pen between his teeth, and two notebooks on the coffee table. John had no idea what he was working on, but for the first time in about a month, Sherlock seemed alive. Invested. Motivated. There was a slight blush on his cheeks, and an excited spark in his eyes. It didn’t change the fact that he was starting to look sickly thin, but it improved it, by miles and miles. Disturbing him felt wrong.

John sighed. He was a coward – that’s what was wrong. He made up excuses because he didn’t want to be rejected, he didn’t want to try something just to be sent away. Again. They had barely spoken in weeks, every time they’d tried anything more advanced than “good morning” or “I won’t be home until late” they had ended up arguing about food. Or not food, but whatever the substitute of the day had been. Most recently, two days ago, it had been about John moving one of Sherlock’s books.

John didn’t want to argue again. He was too tired for that. He was also too tired of not doing anything. Of feeling utterly and completely useless. He had to do something, and this, arguably, was something.

He inhaled, ignoring his insecurities, and went to sit down on the sofa, facing Sherlock. Sherlock glanced up at him and frowned slightly.

“Give me your hand,” John said, slowly letting out his breath.

“Why?”

“I want to try something.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

“I thought I’d give you a hand massage.”

“Because physical contact releases endorphins and you’ve read in some teen magazine in the patients’ lounge that massages help people come to terms with and accept their bodies?”

John pressed his lips together tightly. That wasn’t where he had read it at all, though granted, that was the conclusion the study he _had_ read had come to. Massage was good. Physical contact was good. He highly doubted that massaging Sherlock’s hands for ten minutes or so would miraculously make things better, but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to reconnect. The goal was to stop yelling at each other.

“What do you have to lose?” John asked.

“My respect for you as a physician?”

“Shut up,” John muttered. “Now give me your hand, or I’ll wrestle you down and give you a back rub instead. I estimate that I have at least three stone on you at this point, so it won’t be hard.”

Sherlock gave him half a smile, holding out his left hand to John. “Not that many people can make a massage sound threatening.”

“Not many people would feel threatened by it, either,” said John, taking Sherlock’s hand.

It was stone cold. John could feel the cold spread to his own hand and up his arm, but he knew at least that part was only psychological. John lost his way for a moment, Sherlock hadn’t let him touch him at all for ages, and now all of a sudden they were holding hands. Or John was holding Sherlock’s, at least.

“John.” There was a sharpness in Sherlock’s voice, but he did nothing to pull back his hand.

“Yeah, yeah,” John mumbled. He moved forward so that he sat closer to Sherlock, making sure he didn’t sit on his feet. He made Sherlock’s hand into a fist and closed both his hands around it. Warming it. He let go with one hand, reaching for the bottle of lotion he had brought. He felt Sherlock watching him intensely as he squeezed out far too much on their hands, and started to rub it in. It made him feel clumsy and inept, and the whole thing was embarrassing, but he kept going. Sherlock, to his credit, stayed quiet. When he was done, Sherlock’s hand was slippery, but properly warm. John dared to look up at Sherlock, and there was actually some more colour on his cheeks as well.

He started slowly, holding Sherlock’s hand (palm down) in one hand and working on the fingers with the other. He tried to remember what it was he had read, but it just became a jumble of things. When he turned over Sherlock’s hand, to start working on the palm, Sherlock sighed. John stopped immediately, and looked up. Sherlock had his eyes closed, and had tipped his head against the wall.

“You okay?” John asked.

Sherlock opened his eyes. Barely.

“Are you okay?” John asked again.

“You know I’m not.”

Sherlock’s words hit John like cold water in the face and he had to look away, wondering if Sherlock intentionally wanted to hurt him or start a fight with that obvious misinterpretation of the question. Or if he maybe, _maybe_ , wanted to open up, even if just a little.

No matter what his reasons were, John decided to carry on with what he had started and ignore the rest for now.

“I mean,” he said when he met Sherlock’s eyes again, “do you want me to stop?”

Sherlock shrugged, but John took that as permission to continue.

After about ten minutes John thought he had done all the things he remembered. He curled Sherlock’s hand to a fist again, holding it, counting slowly to twenty before letting go.

Sherlock opened his eyes to look at him. “Where did that come from?”

“A teen magazine in the patients’ lounge.”

A smile brushed Sherlock’s features, making the air stuck in John’s throat. Sherlock flexed the fingers on his left hand, studying it. John had no idea what he was looking for, but after a while he realised that Sherlock was stalling, or perhaps building to something.

“Do you want me to do the right one too, or…?” John asked.

Sherlock briefly changed his focus to his right hand, but nodded. He put away the magazine and folded his legs underneath himself. More stalling. Finally he held out his right hand for John to take, palm up. John made it into a fist, wrapping both his hands around it like he had with the left. It wasn’t as necessary now, since the increased circulation in the left hand seemed to have warmed up the right was well, but John liked holding it.

Holding Sherlock.

Feeling that maybe, just maybe, he did something to help.

He took a deep breath, and started to apply the lotion. If this became a habit, and John started to hope it would be, he should really buy massage oil. Though this worked. And the massage worked. Not only did Sherlock allow the touch, but he seemed to relax. The lines around his eyes -– John knew they were signs of tension headaches -– had smoothened out a little, and his breathing was deep and calm, even if he clearly wasn’t looking at what John was doing now.

At first, John tried to avoid, or at least ignore, the scabs on Sherlock’s knuckles, the screaming testament to what Sherlock sometimes used his dominant hand for. It didn’t work. At all. And when he touched the fingers, he felt Sherlock tense up. John made Sherlock’s hand into a fist again, and just held it.

He met Sherlock’s eyes. “What are you working on?”

Sherlock raised his eyebrows.

“The research, what you’re reading? Tell me about it.”

“You don’t care about that.”

“Probably not, but tell me anyway.”

Sherlock inhaled deeply, but nodded. “You know intrinsically conducting polymers?”

“Pretend that I don’t.”

“It’s what it sounds like, never mind, it’s not really important,” said Sherlock, waving his left hand. “There’s been a minor breakthrough in using them in immunoassays. This particular one is probably a dead end, since there are cheaper and very reliable ways to test for West Niles viruses already –- I don’t know why they ever picked that to start with, the method in this article is disturbingly bad. The study seems to strongly indicate that you _can_ use ICP in biosensors. It’s not conclusive, by any means, but it’s very interesting.”

John listened, more to Sherlock’s excitement than to his actual words, because Sherlock had been right, he didn’t care about… whatever the name of the polymers was. He unfolded Sherlock’s hand, and picked up the massage as Sherlock kept talking. He was done before Sherlock was. When John closed his hands around Sherlock’s, Sherlock fell silent. John counted to twenty again, before letting go. He didn’t want to, but no matter how much he wanted this moment to go on, he wanted to not scare Sherlock off more.

Sherlock rubbed his hands together, distributing the excessive lotion more evenly. “What was this about?”

John shrugged. “Releasing endorphins and--“

“John.”

“I don’t know.” John sighed. “It just-- I miss you.”

Sherlock nodded slowly, but he reached for the _BMJ_ without another word. John nodded too, mimicking Sherlock’s movement with his hands to get some of the lotion off. After almost half an hour of physical contact, it felt strangely hurtful to be ignored for the sake of a magazine.

He pushed that feeling away and got off the sofa. At least they hadn’t fought, and that meant a lot.


End file.
